Comprehensive Rental WOF

Comprehensive Rental WOF

Posted by Chris Marffy51tp on July 27, 2017

All rental properties should meet certain standards of insulation, moisture management etc to be rented out. Doing this has two benefits, firstly the living quality of the stock of rental property will drastically increase for a lot of tenants, most likely decreasing health spending by some amount down the line due to healthier living environments. Secondly, the extra costs of being a landlord (paying for things like high standards of insulation in rental properties) will mean that the balance of people buying a second home shifts to make it slightly less worthwhile, opening the market up to more first-home buyers. A house will now be "cheaper" as an owner occupier situation than a rental situation.
I think policies to dissuade rental ownership will be more effective than "punishing" general house ownership, as the currently proposed tax reforms are suggesting. I also think the proposed reforms will create a new imbalance with taxes - wealthier people who are savvier with the tax system will make much more effective use of expense claims against the new imputed rent tax than first home buyers for example.